Welcome to "Dust, Tears & Dice", a blog dedicated to the hobby of miniature wargaming.
If you fancy gaming periods off the beaten track then this is the place for you.
I am a regular member of The Wyvern Wargamers, formerly The Evesham Wargames Club drawing gamers from Worcester, Redditch, Kidderminster, Cheltenham and Stratford.
All players welcome.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

With the Spanish and Irish forces completed to a level that I can put on a viable scenario, I wanted to kick start the English Trained bands to go up against the Irish in the Plantation Wars, The Spanish in the Netherlands or an alternative universe where the Spanish land in England or the victims of the Black death rise from their graves.

Technically there was little in the way of uniforms in the Elizabethan
Army, but I wanted them to mix well up against the Spanish who I had
applied a uniform approach to the painting scheme, there is a colour plate in the Osprey Armada book that has a figure in a similar colour scheme.

All Calivers and Musketmen from Foundry with an officer figure from Warlord Games.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Last weeks game and subsequent blog entry made me realise that the 15mm Boxers painted 10 years ago were in need of a make over, I was not looking for a major repaint just some freshening up.
Over the years my painting style has evolved with the use of inks and shades although the bulk of my armies and terrain are now 28mm, but these fella's were a labour of love built up over 8 years.
Times for a 15mm, 15 minute Boxer make over.

The original paint job had a Gloss varnish to protect them from game play and whilst they have suffered very few chips they are rather too shiny for my taste now.

I applied a Matt Varnish which gave them a better feel for the modern wargames table.

This did not give them the lived in feel I was looking for so I applied a liberal coating of Games Workshop Gryphonne Sepia ink wash and then highlighted the panels of the jackets in white where appropriate. Adding in Silfor Autumn tufts to the bases.

With the addition of the excellent Warbases - Zombie movement trays the re-vamp is complete, having completed the rule tweaks for Mud & Blood from the Too Fat Lardies for the Boxer Rebellion, I can see these getting a little more acrton in 2013.

Just the question of completing the exercise for the other 400 in the collection...

Saturday, December 22, 2012

The
run up to Christmas so what better way to spread harmony than to pit
multiple players against one another in a race to save face and claim
their stake in the Chinese Market.

Sunday night saw the Wyvern Wargamers put on a 5 man participation game set at the height of the Boxer Rebellion.

Seymour
was on his way back from his attempt to relieve Peking, with the rail
line destroyed he is forced to turn back to the coast, the Boxers had
never really threatened his command but the amount of wounded and lack
of provisions was making the march very arduous.

"During
the night in a thunder storm Seymour lost contact
with the Boxer forces. His column is approaching a swollen river his scouts indicate that there are three possible crossing points.
It's unclear which route the bulk of the Boxer forces took perhaps even crossing at all three
points. If he is to protect is wounded, flanks and rear he must ensure
he maintains in contact with the withdrawing Boxer elements "

The game is played out using Mud & Blood from the Too Fat Lardies, the Big man and Support desk is divided into 3 piles, players decide which pile to allocate to which cross point, the Chinese Imperial Army and Boxers allocate to defend and the Allies to attack.

Whilst the devious umpire rolls to see which crossing will be played out on table....

Crossing two is picked, the Boxers are allowed to deploy as blinds and hidden within the terrain, they await the crossing of the allies, we added in an additional rally card for the Boxers and made them aggressive, due to their lack of firepower and the need to close.

The Chinese Army moved in from the edge of the table also on blinds.

Fortunately Crossing two for both sides contained several strong units which moved the encounter on at pace.

Both sides had chosen well, the Boxers had selected several armed bands and their only Artillery section, whilst the Allies had selected the cream of the Allies forces with US Marines and British Regulars, together with a detachment of mounted lancers....

Boxer Artillery deploy for action, these have not been out of the box for a few years and that gloss finish really needs dulling down.

A number of turns pass the Allies edge closer to the hinterland, having cleared the river, with limited casualties from the Chinese fire, but they had yet to encounter the Boxer masses, as time wore on they new reinforcements would be arriving from the other crossings.

The Imperial Army show their hand and Artillery and Kansu Braves reveal themselves from the millet.

Boxer pour from the village and the surrounding terrain, bolstered by reinforcements from the 3rd River Crossing, things look bad for Charlton and his boys...

The Boxers close and force the Marines back.

Meanwhile reinforcements from the 1st Crossing point enter into the outskirts of the near by town, catching the Imperial Army cold, brisk firefight takes place and the Imperial Army is ejected from the town, thanks to a valiant charge by the Royal Marines supported by French Sailors.

The Imperial Army turn their guns and pour fire into the Allied defenders as more Chinese regulars enter the table to bolster the Chinese defence.

Mean while south the Column is bolstered by Russian and Austrian Sailors who try again to force the river crossing, inflicting heavy casualties on the Boxer defenders, but they have too much ground to make up if they are to link up with the French in the town.

As the evening draws to a close the Allies have a foot hold in Northern bank of the river, but Chinese Regulars and Boxers are thinning the Allies with several big men wounded or carried from the field.

As is the case with many encounters if only we had another couple of moves.....

The following forces were initially available split between three crossing points.
The first crossing point was 1D6 turns away, whilst the second 2D6 turns away to give both sides the chance of bolstering their forces.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

The recent cull and sell off got me thinking about what starts me off on a new period?

Ask anybody over at Wyvern Wargamers and they will tell you I am one for the odd or small wars but what causes you to start a new period?

Do you always require some interest or knowledge in a period/genre
before collecting the figures, or is it a book, film or just the quality of some of the sculpts and paint jobs completed by fellow gamers?

What about other club members who have started a faction and you find the game mechanism fun?

Certainly my Elizabethan
collection started out thanks to Foundry and some of their original sculpts aside from the Armada I new very little of the period, now thanks to those figures I am wading my way through an Irish Army for the Nine Years War albeit because I can also use the Irish Warbands to play with others at the club

The latest head turner has to be these from Tsuba Miniatures. A small but growing range but the figures and paint jobs are fantastic.

Markus has big plans for the period, which allows me to build up forces from the beginning of the figures range.

In this case I knew very little of the period outside of the large Naval engagements but the castings sold it to me....

At the same time I spotted these on the Lead Adventure Forum when I was reading a posting on the Boxer Rebellion, James from Oshiro Model Terrain announced his the start of Boxer Buildings in 28mm range.

All of sudden I was thinking back to some of the Great WW1 games and RCW games I had played over the years and more recently some of the great games using the Mud & Blood rule set from the Two Fat Lardies which has always been a popular rule set at the club and give a fast and fair game.

Next think you know I am the proud owner of several second hand books from Amazon on the period a collection of goodies from Markus and have drawn up plans for next years project is in the offing.

The perfect time to kick off a new project, it has to beat the usual Christmas offerings of Socks and Booze.....

Saturday, December 08, 2012

Remember the Alamo...

Planning for next year, I thought it was high time that I thinned some of the projects that never quite reached their painting goals and given the need to fund next year and the storage space needed for an ever increasing collection I thought I would see if I could find a new home for these miniature warriors.

One such project is the
Texas War of Independence, it has some great wargames potential, loads
of minor engagements, varied uniforms for both sides with a plenty of
good quality casting readily available.

Unfortunately
too many alternative projects which have jumped the queue so it's with
regret that I shall be selling off my fledging forces, but it would be
great if I could find a good home for them amongst other gamers.A homage to what might have been....

Mexican
Infantry one of the first units painted Figures from Artizan one of my
favourite units that I ever painted, just not enough game time over the years and too many more are needed to complete the Alamo game that I had in mind.

Alamo
Defenders another great bunch of castings, I do hope I don't regret
this in years to come when somebody suggests a club project in
15/20/54mm .....

Mexican
Cazadore Sharpshooters originally British Riflemen from Onslaught
Miniatures, at the time there were few alternatives on the market and
these seemed to do the job. Not for the purist but they have never let me down on the table.

Dismounted Cavalry originally Front Rank Bavarians (??) but at the time Boot Hill had not launched their range.

So
if you're playing down in old Mexico you eventually have to want to
have a bit of Zorro action so the man himself Zorro - The masked Bandit....

Mexican Presidial Troopers to chase Zorro around the table including Sargent Garcia, just great, it's a shame they never got more than a couple of outings.

Mexican Civilians never a great fan of painting non functional stuff, but they do make the difference to the table top.

I do hope by posting these on here does not sever as a constant reminder of what might have been and I don't tempt myself back in to this period.
Saying that Blue Moon's 15mm do look very nice.........

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Sunday night and the first chance to give the SAGA Irish a run out using the New Raven's Shadow supplement. Four new factions are included - the
Franks, the Irish, the Norse-Gaels and the Kingdom of Strathclyde -
along with new rules and a useful Q&A section.

I was keen on trying the new Irish board The Irish have the
option of fielding Wolfhounds in place of a warrior unit and upgrading
individual hearthguards to Curaidh champions for once I have the figures painted.

It's been a while since I fought Chris, it's fair to say he has become a veteran in that time period, coming second at Warfare, he know his Welsh back to front, whilst I fielded a largely freshly painted Irish Army using a new Battle Board (We all know how newly painted figures perform).

I am ashamed to say defeat within 4 turns....

Looks like it's back to the drawing Board for the Irish, before they come out of their bogs for a refight.

Heathguard on each wing ready to roll up the massed ranks of Warriors hidden in the wood with levy's facing off against each other in broken ground, a nice feature of the Irish is the ability to take make an ambush move and inflict missile fire on any unit in or near broken ground.

My Irish line up against theWelsh 5 Pts of Irish, plenty of rough ground to use the new Ambush rules to whittle the Welsh away.

The Welsh Levy's let fly and kill 7 of the 8 mounted Warriors, the low armour rating coupled with some rather high dice wiped out my planned left flanking move.

The Heathguard in the bog, failed to get enough dice to move out of the bog to close with the welsh other then with the Levy's who took chunks out of them with missile fire. Whilst the Irish have some useful missile traits they lack the speed of movement in rough terrain which is a great feature of the Welsh.

Time to test the Warhounds, very quick and coupled with a useful Irish trait on the battle board when fighting in rough terrain, unfortunately bad dice on my part and low armour ratings all but whipped them out, leaving my Warlord exposed, an error "New" Chris jumped on swamping him with Warriors and bringing this sorry affair to a swift conclusion....